The Jewish Ghetto and Underground Bunkers of Bedzin, Poland

Polish volunteers searching through the rubble of the attic of the Ghetto House, AP

 

"This armband is a witness, it's like directly touching that evil which people created for other people."

"[Seeing it felt like a] jolt."

"Whether building bunkers or trying to hide a child or an aging parent, this is all resistance [resistance beyond shooting back at Nazis]."

"This Jewish history, for me, gave meaning to this town [Bedzin, Poland]."

Karolina Jakowenko, Cukerman's Gate Foundation

 

"The entry to the bunker was through the kitchen oven."

"We are not aware any of the people here survived ... when the Nazis discovered this place."

"Perhaps as many as 60 were hiding here."

Piotr Jakowenko, Bedzin, Poland

 

"There are only a few authentic places in Europe where Jews hid that have been preserved."

"But in those cases, the story is usually told from the perspective of he righteous -- those who saved Jews."

"[In Bedzin, the preserved hiding place was organized by Jews themselves]."

Joanna Krol-Komla, POLIN Museum of the History of the Polish Jews in Warsaw

Hebrew prayerbook, 1934, found in the attack of the Bedzin Ghetto Fighters Memorial, May 29, 2025, AP

 

Among the findings in a house in southern Poland used by Jews, including youth members of the resistance, to hide from the Nazis, a secret bunker, an underground tunnel and a star of David armband are included as remnants testifying to the desperate hope of survival during the Holocaust years of World War II. The two-story red brick house in the town of Bedzin inside the former Jewish ghetto served as a "kibbutz" organized by left-wing Zionist youth; a network relying on one another in hopes of survival. 

 

The key words; survival, resistance and occupiers describing the Jewish existential dilemma when Fascist Germany embarked on a Final Solution to rid the continent of its Jewish population, have long since been coopted by Palestinians claiming them as their original victimhood spurs. Jews never embraced the victimhood mantra in perpetuity; that is the only authentic Palestinian propaganda message skillfully utilized by Arab Palestinians to promote their 'cause' of destroying the Jewish state, claiming the geographic Judean patrimony as their own.

 

Ms. Jakowenko and her colleagues cleared the attic of the house preparing it for renovation by lifting floorboards and collecting the rubble, then carefully examining what remained. Objects they discovered included a 1935 Jewish prayerbook, and a Star of David armband. Last year the Cukerman's Gate Foundation discovered the presence of a bunker and underground tunnel on the house's grounds, working with the memoirs and oral histories of survivors with respect to their historical presence. 

 

Star of David armband, AP

 

As the hideouts were revealed, the property was carefully examined, with evidence suggesting the existence of three bunkers. One of the volunteers who assisted with the search, Wojciech Mazan, explained the work was gruelling but mirrored the massive energy it took as the Jewish youth laboured, in digging out the tunnels and bunkers. "We feel some closeness to them in this energy. The house is speaking to us", he stated. 

 

Prior to the outbreak of war, the town of Bedzin's population included 27,000 Jews, representing half its population. Nazi occupation in 1942 saw authorities creating Jewish ghettos. The house located in the ghetto area represents an episode of Jewish resistance  in Nazi-occupied Poland, not completely dissimilar to that of the Warsaw Ghetto liquidation following its uprising in 1943; there were other areas across Poland of Ghetto resistance. 

 

When the Nazis began the destruction of the Bedzin ghetto in the summer of 1943, the Jews in hiding there managed to smuggle in beforehand about 20 guns to amass an arsenal in the knowledge that the Warsaw Ghetto had already been liquidated. The Bedzin Jews were aware they would not survive, some among them choosing to die shooting back at the Nazis.

 

Poland was home to Europe's largest Jewish population prior to the Second World War. Nazi Germany, responsible for the Holocaust, occupied Poland, and Poland still struggles with the knowledge that Polish neighbours of Jews involved themselves in local pogroms targeting Jews. This local community in Bedzin, however, actively works to revive its Jewish history. 

 

Entrance of  the underground hideout of Jewish residents of the 1943 Jewish ghetto in Bedzin, AP